Climate-neutral and circular built environment – right here, right now –

Abstract

International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) recommends reaching carbon neutrality in the next 20 years. The challenge seems gigantic, and to be honest, out of reach. The built environment is under high pressure as it represents 40% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and embodied emissions coming from building materials production are considered among the most difficult industrial sector to decarbonize. What should we do? What if we choose to live with what we have rather than seek what we don’t have? What if we decided that human activities had caused enough destruction to the Planet and agreed that we should not disturb it more? And more fundamentally, what if we stopped waiting for new technologies that will solve all our problems but unfortunately do not exist yet? What if we just defined, right here, right now, with the technologies, the knowledge and the collective intelligence we have, pathways that will guide us towards a climate-neutral and circular built environment in a desirable way. This is the overall objective of this chapter. We will first identify what is possible and can be directly implemented within existing standards. The chapter will focus on excavation materials, reinforced concrete, timber and insulation materials as main construction materials and show first that it is possible to build climate-neutral buildings with the appropriate combination of such materials; and secondly that we have enough resources. No time to wait for the silver bullet that will save us all. It doesn’t exist… or if it does, it will arrive too late.